Port Royal Punishment

   Since the spring I had been planning to ride the Wissahickon Trail with some of my friends, but because of necessary social distancing and the fact that the area is fairly mobbed during the warmer months, I had put off attempting that route. An acquaintance sent me the photo below, informing me of the presence of a brutal cobbled climb on Port Royal Avenue, right where the Schuylkill Trail splits at Shawmont, giving cyclists a choice of a hilly on-road route or a flat gravel path along the canal into Manayunk. I thought of combining the trail with this hill for a challenging route, but first I had to check out the climb myself.

   A couple weeks ago I attempted Port Royal Avenue on my Cannondale, figuring (equipment-wise) that the pros ride road bikes up such climbs in Belgium, so mine should be able to handle it. Yes, the gearing on my bike would have gotten me over the hill, but in the needed low gear, the slack in the chain was bouncing around too much. About halfway up, my chain popped off the small chainring. 
   The road was so narrow and steep, I doubted I was going to be able to get both my feet back into the pedals in order to get climbing again, and the thought of missing the pedal with no momentum had me quite worried. I was barely getting any traction on the cobbles in my delta-cleated shoes while I was at a calm standstill, and I didn’t think a hard, panicked plant of my foot was going to stick, should I miss engaging the pedal with my shoe. I envisioned a slide, followed by a slow, hard summersault down the bumpy stones! 
   I angled my bike so that I could ride across the path as much as possible, made sure the pedal was rotated in the proper position and went for it. Snap, a miracle - right in! Unfortunately, I only got a handful of pedal strokes further, when the chain again bounced off the small chainring. Well, I used my brain and decided not to push my luck. 
   Disappointed, but more importantly, uninjured, I slowly turned downhill, which actually was no easy feat. I had the brakes squeezed hard all the way down, gently weaving down some of the more broken sections near the bottom that have obviously been eroded by decades of precipitation. The most dangerous part of the experience was at the bottom, when putting the chain back on, some guy in his geeky time trial equipment buzzed within a foot of me without any notice that he was passing. Sorry I may have interfered with your chances of a medal in the Schuylkill Trail Olympics, asshat! 

   Knowing that the rear derailleur on my Bianchi has a clutch to maintain chain tension and eliminate that bouncy slack, I was convinced that Port Royal Avenue shouldn’t be an unreasonable obstacle. I sent out an invitation to the usual suspects for an exploration of Philadelphia’s “Forbidden Trails”. My ominous title was partly playing on the five-mile section of the Wissahickon Trail called Forbidden Drive, so-named because automobiles were banned from using the carriage road in the 1920s. 
   We started our ride at Fort Washington State Park, and I laughed when I saw the parking lot that is usually empty to me during weekday rides but was now absolutely packed with cars belonging to hikers and some visitors using the nearby hawk-watching platform. There was also a Saturday morning Tai Chi group meeting on the lawn next to the platform! My friend Dan and I continued on about a half mile to reach another parking area adjacent to a picnic pavilion/playground spot and rode our bikes back to meet the rest of the group who had squeezed into a couple of spaces in the upper lot. 
   The initial section of the trail seemed to be undergoing some development and was broken up with coarse stone segments, but we were soon on a nice paved surface that parallels the winding path of the Wissahickon Creek. After a few miles, we exited the park on Stenton Avenue and pedaled past the beautiful horse farms in that area, as well as the entrance to the Morris Arboretum on Northwestern Avenue. We soon crossed Germantown Avenue, near the attractive campus of Chestnut Hill College (photo below) and reached the trail head in Wissahickon Valley Park. 

   I’m always amazed to think that the first time Sue and I cycled on Forbidden Drive (YIKES, going on 30 years ago!), we were on our road bikes and didn’t get a flat. The trail is very rocky in spots and the size of the gravel isn’t very regular, going from finely crushed rock in spots, to railroad ballast-sized chunks in others – and you have to be alert, since the mottled sunlight that filters through the branches plays tricks on your eyes. 

   Our crew had little worries, since we were all wide-tire equipped, but we did have to be sure to avoid the smelly obstacles left behind by the horseback riders! The trail was also a bit busier than expected with foot traffic, if only because it was an absolutely beautiful September morning and people were maxing-out the last of their summer mornings. 

   We left the Wissahickon Trail at Ridge Avenue and followed the Schuylkill River Trail (SRT) along Kelly Drive to East Falls Bridge. Martin Luther King Jr. (West River) Drive has been closed to auto traffic since the spring in order to accommodate regular exercise during the pandemic, which has been a good thing, but the asphalt has seen absolutely no maintenance during this period, either. The severe flooding caused by the remnants of Hurricane Sally, plus a series of heavy summer storms have left sections of the road badly broken and/or potholed. 

   Luckily, the road is a four-lane, undivided surface, so there is plenty of room to maneuver around the bad patches. We made our way to W. Strawberry Mansion Drive and then took Greenland and Chamounix Drives, which wind at a reasonable incline up out of the Schuylkill Valley. We took Ford Road to reach Wynnefield Heights, then connected with Conshohocken State Road to reach the trailhead of the Cynwyd Heritage Trail. 

   The 1.5-mile coast down the trail was quite welcome, especially in light of what was ahead of us in a short time, and many of our crew had never previously crossed the Manayunk arch bridge high over the river and adjacent Schuylkill Expressway. We then zigzagged down to the canal towpath entrance near Green Lane. This section of the SRT is mostly packed dirt with maybe some very fine crushed stone mixed in, and ends with a very short cobbled climb up to the Shawmont railroad station, for just a taste of what was to come. 

   A little flat run on Nixon Street led us to the bottom of Port Royal Avenue, and not wanting to have to pass slower traffic I made sure to hit the cobbles first. My Bianchi is not quite as generously geared as my road bike, and about halfway up, I was starting to have a hard time keeping the pedals turning over. At this late point of the summer, I was in good enough condition – my breathing was good and my legs weren’t fatiguing. The incline was just super difficult! 

   The complete climb is just under 400 feet in 1.5 miles, but the section we were on heads up 150 feet in just under a quarter mile! Right behind me, I heard Dan say in between breaths, “Running...out...of...gears – tapping out!” He told me later at the top that he actually started running it, cyclocross style, so that I he wasn’t feeling so much that he had given up. He certainly had nothing to be ashamed of, as he is a couple inches taller and more powerfully built than me, yet he had the same exact gearing as I do. Physics simply caught up to him! 

   I grinded it out until the cobbles started to level out then cut back on the pace severely in order to catch my breath. Dave (of broken Emonda fame) was the first to catch up, spinning rather easily in the climb-friendly gearing on that bike. He is also a regular mountain biker, very used to extreme inclines – he wears us out with the way he powers over some of the hills on our regular rides. 

   Sometimes, even though such a challenge is a bit agonizing, there is something strangely fun about it, and we all stopped at the top to share our opinions on the experience. The word “brutal” was used often, but so were the words “next time...”, which made me feel good about including the climb on our route. 

   We were now in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia, and after a short trip east on Henry Avenue, we made a left on Wises Mill Road to enter back into Wissahickon Valley Park. The downhill to Forbidden Drive was fast, and I knew the turn onto the trail near the Valley Green Inn (photo below) was rather sharp, so keeping the speed under control was important.

 

   Back now at just about the midpoint of the park trail, we were simply retracing our outgoing route back to Fort Washington State Park. The upper part of the trail was noticeably less crowded, but we did have a couple of friendly interactions with hikers, who also seemed to be ending their day’s exertion – though I doubt they had faced anything like we did! 

   Knowing that I would want to do that route again, I starting thinking about improvements to my gearing. I remember even back to our Nova Scotia trip, wishing I had just a bit more “climbability” in my cassette, and I decided it was finally time to do something about it. My rear derailleur allows a maximum cog of 36t, which I already had, so I had to add a derailleur hanger extender. Just to provide a bit of “flash”, I bought a Wolf Tooth brand extender and 40t cog, both in red.

Next time up Port Royal Avenue should be a bit easier!

Six* Italians and a Japanese...no, not the start of a joke!

   It has happened for the second time this year - I've been nearly cleared out of all finished bicycles! I started with seven bikes hanging in my shop rafters this spring, and all but two were gone before the summer set in. I eventually built up five more bicycles, and even had a couple custom jobs thrown in, and now only one is left...and I'm just saying, that one bike, the Patelli, is absolutely gorgeous - I think you need to see it in person, as photos just don't do the shiny chrome justice!

   Anyhow, I'm stocking up again, and I also helped find bicycles for a couple new customers who have visited the blog to see my work and wanted me to find a special vintage machine for them. Knowing that, particularly in the current global bicycle shortage, the Colnagos and Pinarellos out there were going to be costly, I suggested a couple of lesser-known, yet just as high-quality brands.
   Battaglin (pronounced baht-tahl-YEEN) was a name that came up, and strangely two bicycles became available in quick succession. I actually took a drive to the Baltimore suburbs to pick up the one craigslist bike on behalf of my customer, Paul. This Battaglin had an Italian tre-colori paint job similar to my Pinarello Asolo, only the color change goes side to side, instead of top to bottom like mine.

   The bike will receive some new tires and different bar tape, but Paul decided he liked the retro to modern build the previous owner had done. The polished aluminum Campagnolo Potenza components do look rather nice, but I think the Mavic Ksyrium wheels are a little too modern, particularly because they have bladed spokes. Paul suggests this is something he might change in the future, but it's his bike, after all!

   The other Battaglin bicycle has some of that cool '80s smoke paint treatment that I just can't figure out how was done. I had worked on a Guerciotti bicycle a few years ago with a similar treatment. My customer Steve and I have worked out a deal where I would purchase his Battaglin from eBay, and he would give me his Francesco Moser Leader AX (frameset shown below) plus the parts from the Battaglin. I would then swap out the parts from his Moser onto his newly-acquired frameset.
   I'm still on the lookout for a vintage pair of Campagnolo toeclip-style pedals, but it is otherwise complete. Steve had a really nice Chorus group that looks perfect with this early '90s frameset:

 

   Italian #4 is a Fondriest X Status frame from the mid-‘90s, purchased from a neighbor who worked at a local shop. He had seen some of my bikes when packaging them for shipping - I hate to pack bikes, especially since I have to partially disassemble them, and I already had them fine-tuned and ready to ride!
   Former pro Maurizio Fondriest started designing frames shortly after his retirement following the 1998 season. I’ve mentioned his surprise 1988 World Championship here before, but the talented Italian was a consistent presence on the podium during the following decade, winning classics like Fleche-Wallonne and Milan-San Remo, and shorter stage races, such as Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour of Poland.
   This frameset is made of welded Dedacciai steel tubes which have aero-profiled shapes, and it includes an elite-quality Time carbon fork. I don’t have a plan in place for this, but it will definitely have Campagnolo involved, along with appropriate Cinelli or 3T accessories.

   I don’t browse craigslist very regularly, as it is flooded by so much garage-type quality stuff made by the major American brands, and it is quite time consuming to sift through it all. I will occasionally throw Colnago or Pinarello into the search engine and come up with something, and in this case, I netted a very nice 1980s Treviso frameset. It even came with a few extra parts that I’ve resold to shave some bucks off of the build budget, but I have a Campagnolo Athena 7-speed group set aside, and a pair of the company’s Omega wheels that will compliment this project nicely.

   The last Italian is a bit of a repeat, as I found another Bianchi Alloro. I’ve talked before about being particular about the graphics on the Bianchi frames I purchase, and I dig the maroon with gold outline font on the Alloro more than most. My inspiration for this project is kinda funny – I have a bunch of British-threaded Campagnolo bottom brackets that need a home, and Bianchi is the only Italian brand that consistently uses a 68mm bottom bracket shell!

*An unfortunate update: after closer inspection, the seller had sent me a frame with a crack in the back of the headtube. When I went to remove the badly tool-marked headset, I noticed the damage. So let's make the title "Five Italians and a Japanese".

   The Battaglin bought for Steve had a really nice Shimano 600/Dura-Ace component mix, and a Fuji “Finest” frameset given to me by a tall friend was to be the perfect destination for those Japanese parts! I’m not a big fan of Fuji bicycles, but this frame had a wonderful candy red paint job and silver decals that really caught the eye. Shortly after I received this frame, I was contacted by someone who’d seen a few of my past craigslist-ings, and the bike was essentially sold before even being built!

Shimano 600 Ultegra 8-speed group, including: CRANKSET (172.5mm, 53/39t), BRAKE/SHIFT LEVERS, DERAILLEURS (front and rear); BRAKES; BOTTOM BRACKET- Mavic; STEM- ITM (90mm), and HANDLEBARS ITM Superitalia Pro 260 (42cm); SEATPOST- Sugino; SADDLE- Selle San Marco Ponza; WHEELSET- Dura-Ace hubs, rims: Velocity Aerohead (front) SunRims ME14A (rear) with NEW Vredestein Fortezzo Senso tires

 

   Just a final comment before signing off, I am greatly enjoying the Tour de France this year, if only because it won't be the same Team Sky/Ineos victory result in the end. I watch the Eurosport coverage, and it becomes tiring hearing about how great the British team is during every single Grand Tour! I imagine anyone not from the U.S. felt the same about watching Lance and company during his seven-year run. I especially like the thought that Ineos may come away from the Tour with absolutely nothing, not even a single stage win.

   

Surely, I can't be the only one who enjoys seeing big-budget teams have their plans crumble!

These Three Guys...

   I don’t know who they are, but they were the inspiration for this adventure. Months ago, someone posted this photo on the Anthracite Railroads Society Facebook page. I am the membership secretary for the Society, which focuses on the railroads that once transported hard coal from the Appalachian Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania to New York City and Philadelphia ports.

   I grew up in the Lehigh Valley, and its namesake railroad had its headquarters in my hometown of Bethlehem. I now live within a couple blocks of the former Reading Railroad mainline. Both of these railroads were major transporters of anthracite coal in the region.

   The men above were photographed outside the Lehigh Valley Railroad station in Landsdowne, New Jersey, in 1900 – incidentally, I’ve seen the town also spelled “Lansdowne” and today spelled “Landsdown”. In any case, Landsdown is located where the Lehigh Valley Railroad’s Clinton Branch split north from the mainline right in the center of New Jersey’s Hunterdon County. The branch carried mostly passengers, but some products, such as graphite and milled grains were moved down the tracks.

   Here is a photo of the Landsdowne Station, which stood from 1875 to 1928:

   The railroad right-of-way is now the attractive Landsdown Trail, just under two miles long. Now you know that is nowhere near long enough to create a worthwhile cycling experience for me, but Landsdown was also the location where the Pittstown Branch diverged to the south. Pittstown is one of many places around the world named for William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, the great British statesmen who is best known for leading Britain politically through the Seven Years War.

   The Pittstown Branch served the peach growing and peach basket production industries that flourished in the area during the late 1800s. In fact, Hunterdon County was once known as the “Peach Capital of the World”, just another reason for New Jersey’s “Garden State” nickname. Unfortunately, a blight known as the San Jose Scale moved into the region in the mid-1890s, killing millions of peach trees in just a few years, and the industry moved to South Jersey. The line continued to serve other agricultural businesses until the 1960s, particularly milk production.

   The four-mile Coopalong Trail, named for the creek that it follows along its winding route, now occupies the railroad right-of-way. Because it is not as maintained as the Landsdown Trail, the Coopalong has its good and bad points. The trail is a lot more “reclaimed by nature”, so I encountered far fewer users. Much of the route is dirt single-track, which can be smooth and fast, but the path isn’t consistent.

   There were some sections where tree roots were exposed and others were the soil washed away and the trail was fairly rocky. The shade was quite welcome on a hot summer day, but that made it even more treacherous, as my eyes couldn’t adjust quickly enough in the dappled sunlight and I couldn’t spot the obstacles very well. Though there were a couple moments I hit objects and feared a pinch flat was imminent, I survived on my rigid Bianchi frame and 30mm tires, but I think a mountain bike with fatter tires and some cushy suspension would have been more appropriate.

A shot of one of the more relaxing sections of the Coopalong Trail

   Low spots were muddy, and some were filled with crushed stone or sand, making the going just plain sluggish. In other instances, it seemed riders tried to create a “high line” to one side or the other of the deep groove, but the path is so narrow this just created more danger, since having one wheel slide off into the mushy low path and losing control became a concern.

   I got through it all in one piece, only having to dismount a couple times for downed trees, but I was really happy to take on the road portion of my planned route for the day. Near the Pittstown terminus I spotted the former Lehigh Valley station that folks are trying to preserve to some degree with tarps on the roof.

   I turned right onto Pittstown Road and angled northwest from the small town center onto Bloomsbury Road. I was not disappointed to find it to be the first of a handful of unmarked roads - a New Jersey staple - along my route. It seems the state has the attitude that with major roads you should already know where you are and only signs for small cross roads are provided. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but what if you are coming off of the smaller road onto the major one and don’t know which road it is? Luckily, I have learned my lesson and planned accordingly, plotting my route to as many T-intersections as possible, in order to eliminate any confusion.

   Bloomsbury Road was a slow, uphill drag as I was climbing up to an eventual plateau 300 feet above Clinton and the valley surrounding nearby Spruce Run Reservoir, where I often used to sail our family’s Sunfish boat when I was kid. Mt. Salem Road was a bit misnamed, as it really wasn’t a mountain – it was more of a stepped pair of crazy-steep short hills, the punchy kind of climbs I masochistically enjoy. Once at the top there was a pleasant spell of fairly flat to slightly downhill riding on roads skirting the Alexandria Field Airport toward tiny Everittstown.

   Palmyra Corner Road was another nasty uphill drag, and at the appropriately-named Oak Summit Road, I was again pedaling along more relaxing terrain as I weaved over to meet Pittstown Road once again. It was a very calm day, and I was flying along a really nice, fairly new road surface, then turned east onto Oak Grove Road that had one of those really old surfaces that is so worn smooth it is almost shiny – super fast to ride on!

   I zigzagged over to Croton Road and headed north, enjoying the flat, but wondering when the downhill was going to begin. Shortly after turning east at Quakertown, there was a sharp downhill right into a steep climb, then the fun really began with the decent on Sydney Road. There was a bit of nasty uphill lump in the middle to really interrupt the enjoyable coasting-fest, but the view of the valley below made the effort worth it.

   I had to be very careful to feather the brakes and not “overcook” the turn onto Sydney School Road, then some impatient female driver felt she had to honk her horn at me as she passed, not that there was enough room or any other traffic to contend with out here in the middle of nowhere. The really stupid thing was that, with her SUV, she couldn’t corner anywhere as quickly as I could on the windy Pine Hill Road, and I was only a few yards behind her when we reached a bridge at the bottom.

   I assumed she did it just to bother me, but she crawled across the span at an unnecessarily slow speed, and I couldn't resist yelling out, “You were in such a hurry, blowing by me before.” Oh boy, I've provoked a yapper...”What’s you’re problem?” I rolled slowly by and replied, not even making eye contact, “Honking at cyclists isn’t necessary – we know we are sharing the road with cars. The only thing you accomplish is startling someone and maybe causing them to swerve.”

   She grumbled something which I couldn’t hear, then sharply hit the gas to spit gravel under her tires, I guess the intent was to be threatening, like she was going to run me down, but I was already several yards past and didn’t even acknowledge her actions. I accelerated away quickly and didn’t see her again.

   From this annoying moment it was just a couple of mostly downhill miles on Hamden/Leigh Road back to Main Street in Clinton. I laughed when I saw the sign there marked as Route 173, knowing this is also known as Old Route 22, Main Street and, in just a couple of blocks, would become Pittstown Road. Sure, New Jersey, you put a sign here?

   The shop has been plenty busy again with client build projects, which I'll touch on in upcoming weeks, but I finished up yet another bicycle that is different from the vintage racing machines on which I usually work. My friend Julius is living in Philadelphia and found an inexpensive, unbranded fixed-gear bike. He asked me to change the rear cog to one with a freewheel and to add some brakes, which ended up being a little more complicated than I thought it would.

   First of all the rear brake bridge wasn't drilled for mounting calipers. Luckily there was a vent hole on the back side of the small steel tube at that location, so I could center a bit for metal drilling on that mark and create a caliper mount. I used washers that were curved on one side to provide a flat surface on which to bolt the rear brake.

   Fixed gear bicycles sometimes have a front brake for safety, and the fork was drilled for a caliper mount with a recessed nut. My new rear mount was going to require a flush nut mount, which made for a long search to find individual brake calipers that matched up well.

   Besides having to head over to Bikesport to borrow the special tool to remove the fixed cog, the only other minor complication was to add some old school top tube clips to route the rear brake housing. I'll sign off this week with a few photos of Julius' ride: